The Women of the Wall and their Kotel Kontroversy
The Women of the Wall must be one of the most offensively misnamed groups in history. They don’t represent the Wall, they don’t represent the vast majority of the women who pray there, and...
Two Losses
The news is reporting today the passing of HaRav Yaakov Yosef zt”l, the oldest son of ylctv”a Chacham Ovadiah Yosef shlit”a. A student of Yeshivos Porat Yosef, Kol Torah, Kol Yaakov and Merkaz HaRav...
Carter at Cardozo, and the Commonality of Communal Failure
The Jimmy Carter debacle may tell us more about the values and principles of our community than we bargained for. Subgroups that believe they have little in common seem to behave – or misbehave...
Obama Comes Clean
Back in 2009, I was troubled by the reaction of many of my friends to President Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world. I had shared the same concerns they had about Mr....
Monkeys, Marriage and Morality
Amid the ongoing avalanche of political conversions, punditry and testimonials on behalf of redefining marriage was a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times by a professor of biology, David George Haskell. The...
Announcement
Response to my proposed weekly by-subscription PDF offering, “An Observant Eye,” was sufficiently strong to justify my undertaking the project, and I’m happy to announce that the first issue will be e-mailed to subscribers,...
Can We Do Anything to Lessen the Hatred?
Already five years ago, a prominent American rosh yeshiva told me that we might be approaching the end of a miraculous period in which the secular Israeli government became the prime supporter of Torah...
The Coalition Plan For Charedim
The coalition government government’s plan for drafting charedim should give rise to some sighs of relief, and some guarded optimism. That is not likely to happen, because it is just not the way charedim...
Deconstructing Dayeinu
Much of our Seder-night message to our children, mediated by the Haggadah, is forthright and clear. Some of it, though, is subtle and stealthy. Like Dayeinu. On the surface, it is a simple song...